Tourist attractions Stratford-upon-Avon

When horticulturer Lawrence Johnstone created this English garden, one of the most beautiful of the 20C, he concocted a multitude of enchanting effects for this small 4ha space. A labyrinth of Garden Rooms encircles a complex arrangement of aromati..

Built on the banks of the Avon on the site of a Norman mound and interior courtyard, which were probably originally a Saxon fortification, the castle was the fief of the Counts of Warwick . The castle is very much alive today, thanks to the scenes f..

The half-timbered house where the dramatist was born is part museum (including a First Folio) and part shrine. Note the graffiti on the upstairs windows (Scott, Carlyle, Ellen Terry and Henry Irving).

Shakespeare's eldest daughter, Susanna, married a physician, John Hall, and the couple lived here until around 1616. The restored house part 16C, part 17C, contains furniture and paintings from this period, notes about the physician's patients and a ..

Founded in 1571 by Robert Dudley (favourite of Queen Elizabeth I), the hospital includes a half-timbered house surrounding a charming courtyard. The oldest parts are the chapel, dating back to 1383, and the town hall, built in 1450 by Warwick, the &q..

Noble rather than stately, Ragley was designed in Palladian style by Robert Hooke between 1679 and 1683. James Gibbs added some of the finest plasterwork ceilings he ever produced in around 1750 and, thirty years later, Wyatt built the giant ..

Enormous and inspiring terror, these ruins were in the 13C the home of Simon de Montfort. King Edward II, all dressed in black, was kept prisoner here in the great hall before being led to Berkeley Castle for his execution in 1327. Fortified by Joh..

This late 17C house was bought by Viscount Bearsted, son of the founder of the Shell Company, who displayed his spectacular collection of porcelain and paintings here. The masterpieces of the collection are now housed in the art gallery where, alon..

Of Shakespeare's retirement home, built in 1483, only the foundations remain but next door, in Nash's House , the home of Shakespeare's granddaughter, behind the much restored frontage, is an exhibition on the history of Stratford.

The Chapel of the Guild of the Holy Cross (founded 1263), the ruling body of Stratford before the Reformation, is predominantly Perpendicular, with wall paintings of Christ, Mary, St John, St Peter and the Last Judgement in the chancel.

It opened in 1932 as the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and is now the headquarters of the Royal Shakespeare Company . Adjoining it is the Swan Theatre (1986), with a Jacobean apron-style stage and galleried seating, within the shell of an earlier the..

With an Early English tower and transept and Perpendicular nave, Holy Trinity church would be notable even without Shakespeare's grave on the north side of the chancel. "Blessed be the man who spares these stones / And cursed be he that moves my..

This ornately carved half-timbered house bears the date 1596 when it was the home of Katherine Rogers. The American flag flies here in honour of her son, John Harvard (b 1607), the founder of Harvard University which is the present owner of the bui..

Built in 1123, this collegiate was rebuilt after a fire in 1694. It owes its fame to Beauchamp Chapel (15 C), which contains the tomb , decorated with a fine gilded bronze reclining figure, of Richard Beauchamp, Count of Warwick, and that of Robert ..

Almost entirely renovated in the 15C in the Perpendicular style, St James, one of the finest "wool churches" of the Cotswolds, gives an impression of unity and calm.

Among the houses on the High Street, several are very pretty. Nonetheless, it is the harmony of the buildings altogether rather than the individual houses that is impressive. At the heart of the town stands the covered market (1627). Further north,..